We wanted to explore Cajun Country because we were intrigued by the area’s French history and culture. We were also curious whether we’d understand the local French. It turns out that not many people speak French since a couple of generations ago, the schools punished children if they spoke French. Now some schools are teaching French again.
We started by driving as far south as we could on one road, to a town called Cocodrie. We liked the name because in French, we say “Crocodile,” but Cocodrie is Cajun French.
The drive out was fun for Ghis. The van is not usually that fun to drive, but this road was windy and the land was so flat that you could see if anyone was coming from far away. We could see the charm of boating along the small canals.
There wasn’t much town to see. We saw a lot of houses on stilts and some mobile homes on stilts, too. We also saw a row of condos for rent. They were on stilts with individual docks underneath.
Along the canals, the locals park their shrimp boats next to their houses. There is also a marine research centre. We were just considering parking for the night when an email came in and we got a great invitation to go CouchSurf in Lafayette.
We were enthused to meet John and Becky, two outdoor enthusiasts who own an outdoor store in Lafayette. Morgane was excited because they said we could help decorate their tree when we arrived. Ghis was excited because they invited him to go demo kayaks in the morning.
Louisiana has had much more rain than normal this December. It was nice out this Friday, but at one point the entire road was covered with water. I was a bit nervous, but the van made it through.
We arrived and there was a great dinner waiting for us! It felt great to eat real food. We love John and Becky’s house and their store, too. They have the cutest six-month old puppy. Morgane LOVED unwrapping the decorations and putting them on the tree.
Ghis had a great time kayaking although he forgot to ask about alligator etiquette until he was way off on his own. Turns out the alligators are hibernating now and even if they weren’t, they wouldn’t be a big threat. The bigger threat seemed to be the duck hunters whose shots were unnerving.
Back at home, I told Becky that we wanted to see something unique, that I’d been finding that most areas just had the same old tourist stuff. She sent us to Breaux Bridge and that fixed us!
We went to eat in a restaurant that has a band playing Zydeco music every Saturday. When we walked in the door, the music was loud and the restaurant was half-filled with people dancing. There were some cowboy hats and one guy was decked out in a red-sequined shirt. I was like nothing we’d seen before.
Unfortunately it was their last song of the day, but we had a great lunch. I had catfish. It was yummy – no whiskers, thank goodness.
Then we went down the street to a cafe where folks gather to jam all afternoon. There were at least ten people playing fiddles and guitars and other instruments I didn’t recognize. A few couples danced in the small remaining space. Morgane whispered that we could dance, so we did, too.
Tomorrow we are going to watch a nine-year old friend of theirs figure skate and then go to their house for a gumbo party. Her parents are both massage therapists and Ghis has booked himself a massage for tomorrow morning. I, on the other hand, treated myself to some new clothes (Patagonia!) at the store.
All in all, I think John and Becky have inspired us to make the next part of our trip revolve more around hiking.
